


little snake

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:05:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1381747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Magister Cassius thinks he's invulnerable, but every magister eventually meets their Fenris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little snake

**i.**

Danarius had Fenris, and they’d all seen how that turned out.

But Cassius thought himself untouchable. Danarius, for all his experience, was overeager and a bit rough around his edges. He pushed too hard too quickly, he demanded too much, he stripped away too much and left scars too big to ignore. No one was surprised when his little wolf bit him and bolted; they were, however, surprised it took so long to happen.

Cassius, when he found out that Fenris had escaped, stroked his snake’s head and chuckled. The Magisterium would be lively that evening, that was for sure.

And he attended to his own slaves, with all the quiet arrogance that came with self-possessed mastery, with all the casual indifference that came with a total lack of understanding of his own tenuous position.

**ii.**

Jethro was from the Anderfels, willowy and wiry. Underneath his narrow amber eyes had been two permanent dark patches, from constant application of charcoal, the Anders’ favoured weapon against sunglare. But Cassius fixed that, with makeup, and later with abrasion.

He was stronger than he looked, and rogue-like in his dexterity. When Cassius flicked his nine-tails, Jethro twitched his shoulders, flexed his torso, and the blow would glance off him, or land with less conviction. But Cassius fixed that, with elaborate and elegant ropework, and later with muscular atrophy and a protein-deficient diet.

Jethro was Cassius’ project, his pet, the one slave that stuck in his craw and would not let up. The one that was so good he was bad, that was so wicked he was perfect. The one that rebelled just enough to remain interesting, whose petulant glare was so sharp it was lovely, who didn’t flinch at trifling punishments and therefore required so much more inventiveness on his master’s part.

Jethro kept Cassius interested, and in return, Cassius slowly unleashed his entire arsenal of wicked whims on the Anders’ resilient body and stubborn mind. Cassius took him into his bed, was almost gentle, and when that failed to confound Jethro, Cassius employed that same gentleness with a flaying knife and finely-ground salt. He bathed Jethro in red lyrium and drank deeply of his essence, and the Fade bloomed psychedelic and pulsing around him, feeding him, making him wild, making him… mad.

"You spend too much time with that one," Lucrezia pointed out in her musing drawl, pipe smoke curling in the air as it was expelled from her wine-red lips.

"You spend too much time worrying about what I’m doing," Cassius snapped, and the harshness of his tone, the deviance from the lazy banter that the magisters employed amongst each other, made Lucrezia’s eyes narrow shrewdly and her nails click interestedly against the crystalline pipe in her hand.

They were all watching. Watching his unwitting demise.

**iii.**

Cassius renamed him. No longer Jethro, but Culis, shortened from Angiculis.

_Little snake._

Danarius, hearing this, smiled.

**iv.**

He made the fatal error of parading Culis. Of showing him off. _Look at this thing I have broken and remade in my own image._ He brought Culis to the Magisterium with him, perfumed and jewelled, and the Archon frowned in disapproval, but what could he say? Cassius was well-established, and he wasn’t the first magister to bring pets into court with him.

Later, Lucrezia tipped Culis’ chin up so she could look into his eyes. A moment later, she stepped back, sniffed as if in disdain, and abruptly departed.  
It was not disdain. It was blood, the rush of a sudden nosebleed.  
She left both Cassius and his new pet snake alone after that.

The red lyrium had not penetrated deep, Cassius was sure of that — or, so he’d thought. The primeval substance had its own plans for the vessel into whose pores it was poured, its own plans for the blood it touched. And Culis was _becoming,_ becoming something other than what Cassius had thought he made; becoming stronger, surer. His flesh vibrated, his blood thrummed, his mind constantly whirled with Fade images. The last time he’d been in the Fade, a rage demon locked eyes with him.

 _Wait,_ the red lyrium whispered within him, like a lover closer than close.

_Wait._

**v.**

Culis touched them, one by one. All of Cassius’ boys felt the Serpent’s sting, the electricity that leapt from his thin fingers to their flesh.

Cassius never witnessed this exchange, and would not have understood it if he did. Even Culis was not sure he understood, but when he looked into the other boys’ eyes, he saw what he needed to see.

 _Wait,_ he whispered to them, the promise of a red dawn in his eyes.

_Wait._

**vi.**

On the balcony, Cassius stood with a glass of Seheron red and surveyed his domain. This place he had come to with nothing, and conquered, and become everything. — _Almost_ everything; he had not yet seen the Archon’s seat, but he could wait. Oh, he could wait.

The content smile that had begun to touch his lips faltered when he noticed his vision had blurred at the edges. It was only his first glass, this was impossible. He never—

Fog obscured his mind and eyes both, and he swooned. The Fade bloomed around him briefly, and it seemed as if red demons’ eyes were honing in on him, the way predators honed in on weakened prey.

"Culis—" he forced out, gripping the balcony’s rail with hands that were already slipping off it. He struggled to remain standing.

"Jethro," Culis corrected, appearing like a shadow— no, not like a shadow, like the _sun_ — and raising Cassius’ jewelled dagger up to eye level as he smiled.


End file.
